The Proof is in the Pie

It’s time for a homemade margarine update. And this time around, it’s all about pie crust. The crust recipe I like and have used for years uses a mix of Crisco and butter (or margarine for us). The Crisco makes the crust tender and flaky while the butter adds great flavor. So, while I know I can make a perfectly serviceable and completely Matthew friendly pie crust with just Crisco, I’m much happier if I can stick with my longtime favorite. With that in mind, let me tell you how it worked out.

The short answer is it worked great!

Now here’s the long answer for those who are super into the minutia of baking. After an overnight chill, I usually have to let the unrolled pastry sit at room temperature for 15-20 minutes until it is soft enough to roll without cracking. Using the homemade margarine resulted in a softer dough which meant no waiting. It was ready to roll right out of the fridge. I felt like I needed to move as quickly as possible so it didn’t get too soft, but it didn’t get too sticky or overly difficult to work with in the time it took me to roll it, fill the pie plate, and shape the edge. I chose a pie that uses a fully baked crust so I could assess the results at all stages, so the next step was popping it into the oven for a nice long blind bake. Due to it being softer than anticipated, initially I was worried that it wouldn’t hold its shape in the oven. But there was no need to fret. It held its shape nicely and turned a nice golden color just like I’m accustomed to. Once cooled, filled, and chilled overnight, it retained its integrity and remained nice and crisp. The end result was delicious. I’m sure that was due in part to the fantastic strawberries and cream filling it contained, but still, it was a good crust! It had a decent flake and a nice flavor. It wasn’t quite as tender as I’m accustomed to, but I was so worried about it not being baked long enough to hold its shape that I may have left it in the oven a bit longer than necessary. I’ll see if a slightly shorter bake time improves the tenderness aspect next time around. Because there will be a next time around. This margarine is going to be a very usable option in this capacity.

So, success! I’m so very glad! And I’m hopeful that this homemade concoction will continue to perform well in my other cooking and baking endeavors. I am a bit skeptical about how frosting will hold up at room temperature since the pie crust was softer than that made with a store-bought margarine, but we will just have to wait and see how that experiment goes. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy my slice of pie. 😉

Some Final Comments on This Week’s Meringue

Two days after being baked, the meringue is still light, foamy, and not at all sticky. It is not weeping and there are no little beads of moisture developing. It is still firmly attached to the top of the lemon filling. And strangely enough, the filling seems less watery today and the crust is nice and crisp. I have no idea how that works. The crust was completely waterlogged yesterday. The only explanation I can come up with is that the excess water leaked out of the cut pie into the pan allowing the remaining slices to dry out a bit. But who even knows? 🤷

I’ve been reading up on why lemon meringue pie is prone to becoming watery and I have a couple of tips to try that could potentially help. So there really might be another real meringue pie in the not-so-distant future. Anyone who knows me well knows that a culinary conundrum is like the call of the wild to me. I have to figure out how to fix the kitchen chemistry so that my brain can let it go. I guess it’s a good thing that we like lemon meringue pie!

Let me wrap things up with a completely non-pie related matter. It would seem that the meringue and the turkey were not the only successes this year. Apparently, this year’s gravy was also top notch. We ate leftovers for dinner this evening and once the mashed potatoes were gone, Malia asked if she could heat up the last little bit of gravy and eat it with a spoon. 😂

The Real Meringue

I’ve spent the past two decades learning how to bake without eggs and milk, which are in all reality the basic building blocks of so many confections. But out of need, I experimented and failed and tried again and over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at creating a variety of allergen free versions of cakes, cookies, pies, candies, etc. Most people never even know that the goodies that show up at ward events or bake sales are sans milk and eggs. And I’ve never begrudged the need to make such accommodations in my cooking. It was just one of my missions in life to ensure that Matthew never felt the sting of his allergies in his own home and to provide him with the childhood joys of enjoying a warm chocolate chip cookie, savoring a sticky sweet cinnamon roll, and blowing out the candles on a decadent birthday cake. 

Having said that, with Matthew away from home for a season, I’m happily taking advantage of the opportunity to use more traditional ingredients in some of my baking. I used real eggs in Malia’s birthday cake, made fudge with real butter, and am already thinking about what kind of cheesecake to make for my birthday. But the one I’m super excited about today is meringue made with real eggs. The bean juice works, which still kind of blows my mind, and talking about “bean juice pie” is always a fabulous conversation starter, but I have actually been a little bit giddy about being able to use real eggs so that I can get some of the stability and volume that is such a struggle with bean juice. I know some folks are making magnificent meringues with aquafaba from chickpeas, but since Matthew is allergic to those, I’ve been using the liquid from navy or great northern beans, and it just isn’t as stable. But it works. And the lemon meringue pie is one of Matthew’s favorites, so I’m happy to bean it up and I feel like I’m learning new things every time I try it. 

So, it was a bit of a heady feeling to separate the eggs, turn on the Bosch, and watch the volume increase. I know that probably sounds stupid, but I enjoy baking. It is like therapy for me. Seriously, I was feeling anxious last week so I made bread. And it definitely helped my mood. And it is much cheaper than the hourly rate of most therapists. And as an extra bonus, it leaves a much better taste in your mouth. 😜 So yes, I’m not ashamed to say that today’s meringue filled me with glee. Piling it up high on top of the lemon filling made me smile. Creating the traditional peaks that held their shape in a most marvelous manner resulted in a ridiculous grin. And taking the final results out of the oven perfectly browned and still just as voluminous nearly made me laugh. I can hardly wait to taste my creation!

Other than the luscious lemon meringue, our pie menu is small this year. We have two pumpkin pies (plus a tiny one for Kevin’s parents), a cherry pie (which is Malia’s favorite), and a cranberry orange custard (which is Nathan’s favorite pie of all time). So, six pies in total, five for my own little crew. Tawni is flabbergasted by the whole pie thing. The thought of a full pie per person just blows her mind. She says they usually have about two pies and that feeds the entire extended family. However, my mom’s thirty-two pies still make my half dozen appear extremely moderate. And Tawni did get to experience pie day at my mom’s house, which is pie making on an entirely different level. 😂

With today’s baking done, I can turn my mind to the next culinary adventure-attempting to get my entire turkey cooked. And regardless of the outcome of that endeavor, I’m looking forward to the post-turkey pie eating!

Cherish the Pie Time

At Thanksgiving around here, the turkey is not the focus of the entire event like it is for most people. Thanks to my mother’s obsession with creating pies in absolutely obscene numbers (something we are trying to cure her of), the focus on pie is something I grew up with. And it has carried over into my own family just a little bit. It’s not that we don’t love the turkey, it’s just that we really, really love the pie! But while we really, really love the pie, we definitely like it in smaller amounts than those created at my mother’s house. 

As the years have gone by, there are favorite flavors of pie that have become staples at our Thanksgiving feast. Pumpkin, of course, is always on the menu. Nathan’s favorite is cranberry orange custard, of which I’m also a huge fan. Cherry is Malia’s pie of choice and while she has helped make the cherry pie the past few years, she was disinclined this year, so Nathan took over and learned how to make a lattice top pie. It turned out beautiful and he was very proud of his accomplishment.

The only other pie we made this year was what we all refer to as bean juice pie. In reality it is a Matthew friendly lemon meringue pie, but calling it bean juice is more fun. 😁 Of all our allergen free pies, it is the one that gets talked about the most. Because let’s face it, making meringue without eggs is pretty interesting. And the name of the pie is an attention grabber as well. This year’s bean juice ended up being less voluminous than usual and I’m not sure why. But I have been doing some research on the aquafaba meringue and picked up several tips that kept the meringue fluffy for days rather than turning sticky as it is prone to do. It is always a work in progress, I guess. 

When it was time to eat all the delicious pie, there was much frivolity like normal. When my kids all get together, they just can’t help themselves and jokes, puns, wise cracks, and laughter are plentiful. The three boys kind of ganged up on Malia in terms of jokes. It seems like their whole goal was to get her laughing and keep her laughing. And they succeeded. Honestly, with all of them working together, she didn’t stand a chance! And like usual, there were no pictures where all four of them looked normal. 😉

Now that covered all the aspects of our pies, let’s return to the turkey. My new skill for the year was trussing a turkey. It really isn’t all that hard, but it is something that I just never bothered to learn. But YouTube was a big help, and the bird ended up looking as good as it tasted. Unfortunately, the back of the bird was not cooked all the way through. The exact same thing has happened for about three years now, ever since I got my nice roasting pan. I have done a bunch of reading, have tweaked bake times and temperatures, lowered the rack in the oven, even started roasting the turkey back side up and then flipping it part way through the bake time. But still, the back is not cooking. I never had issues when I used one of those $2 disposable foil pans from the Walmart, so next year I’m going to go back to the cheap pan and see if it solves the problem. But I’m kind of bugged because I spent $60 on a roasting pan that was highly rated and raved about and now I can’t get my turkey roasted correctly. It is highly annoying. 😠

Turkey roasting woes aside, it was good to be together. I love these times. And the pie. And the kids eating the pie. And the laughter that happens as the kids eat the pie. I guess what I’m saying is that I cherish these moments with my kids.

Let the Baking Begin!

As soon as I’m done with my Halloween hijinks, I get to jump right into the holiday baking season. Or maybe the holiday baking season never ends…the holidays just rotate. Either way, I love it! Our inaugural flavor this year is the ever-popular dairy free banana cream pie. We love this recipe. In fact, I was never a fan of banana cream pie until I found this recipe. But the creamy coconut milk pudding atop the golden Oreo crust adorned with oat milk whipped cream is absolutely delightful. (I know it’s not standard, but you should really try a banana cream pie with a golden cookie crumb crust. It is an amazing flavor match.) 

Next week will bring more pie and I’m not the only one in this house looking forward to that!

First Pie of the Season

Last year we ate pie for FHE throughout the month of November rather than only eating pie on Thanksgiving. Our reasoning was that we could enjoy all the flavors of pie we like the most without feeling like we needed to eat our way through a dozen pies in one weekend. We enjoyed that change in routine so much that we are repeating the experience again this year and I suspect it is here to stay. Malia had the honor of choosing the first flavor of pie which means that the top of our apple pie was adorned with dragons. It looks lovely. FYI-cookie stamps work great on pie crust!

 

Pumpkin, Apples, Berries and Bean Juice

Today was our annual pie day. Pie day is usually a marathon pie making extravaganza in my mother’s kitchen, but COVID forced us to bake separately this year. Nevertheless, numerous pies still came into being today. My siblings and I all shared pics of our pies and my mom kept a running tally, just like she always does. Our contribution was eight pies-apple, raspberry, banana cream, lemon, lemon meringue, cranberry orange custard and two pumpkin. And only one of those pies was not safe for Matthew. More on that later.

Each of kids selected their favorite flavor of pie. Malia chose raspberry and except for some advice and help transferring the pie crust to the pie pan, she made the entire thing herself. My role was supervisory. I am so pleased that she has a desire to learn to cook and is becoming proficient. I admit that I’ve been a bit slow to teach her, but a lot of that is because her interest has been limited of late and I’m not willing to fight with her about it. But her desire to learn has started to reemerge and I’m really glad. Her pie is beautiful, and I’ll bet it tastes good too. 😉

While the creation of Malia’s pie was drama free, not so for the apple pie. I’m generally a careful cook, but I was a bit off my game where the apple pie is concerned. I made my own pie filling back in the fall, so once the crust was ready to go, I dumped in the filling. Unfortunately, I forgot to drain off the liquid so I could thicken it. I didn’t want to pour it out of the crust once it was in because that would make the crust on that edge more likely to scorch in the oven, so I called the turkey baster into action a day early and sucked the liquid out. I thickened it and then proceeded to assemble my pie. I got my top crust in place, perfectly vented and creatively crimped…and then looked over and realized that I had forgotten to put the thickened liquid back in. I didn’t want to destroy my beautiful crust by pulling it off to add the liquid, so I reached for the turkey baster’s smaller brother and used a medicine dropper to squirt it back in through the vent holes. I was as gentle as possible and tried to distribute the liquid as evenly as I could. At the end of the day, the pie looks pretty darn good despite all the trauma involved in its creation.

Daniel asked for lemon meringue pie, thinking that would be impossible to do Matthew friendly. But I’ve been cooking egg and dairy free for over a decade and in that time, I’ve seen a lot of different things. One of the egg substitutions that has started making its way around the internet in the past few years is using aquafaba, or the liquid from a can of beans, generally garbanzo beans (chickpeas). It’s something I’ve been wanting to try, but I’ve been holding off because Matthew can’t eat chickpeas. Because he is allergic to peas, there is a high risk of cross reactivity with chickpeas. And I couldn’t find any info on whether or not aquafaba from other varieties of beans would work the same. But I decided it was high time I just tried it out to see what would happen. I used the liquid from a can of great northern beans since they are light colored and mild in flavor, hoping it would work out the same. And guess what? It whips up just like egg whites. It’s so cool! It looks exactly the same, has the same gloss from the sugar and the same stiff peaks! The only thing I did differently was add a bit of zantham gum to help stabilize the meringue. Unfortunately, I waited a bit too long to get the meringue on the pie, so it lost some loft and doesn’t look as pretty as it did when it was freshly whipped. But still, egg free meringue is a reality in our lives! I can hardly wait to taste the pie tomorrow.

Now, about that one pie that is not safe for Matthew. The one he can’t eat is the cranberry orange custard. Egg free custard simply doesn’t have the same silky texture as an egg custard and this particular pie is Nathan’s favorite (one of my favorites too), so we used real dairy and eggs. Since Matthew has his favorite dairy free banana cream pie to look forward to, he doesn’t care a bit about the custard. And as always, Kev is a pumpkin pie man through and through.

I can hardly wait to cut into all these delights tomorrow. It will be a challenge to choose which one to taste first!

Give Thanks

Thanksgiving was this past week and as usual, it was kind of a whirlwind of family gatherings. We made pie on Wednesday. As usual, it was a lot of pie, although there were definitely fewer pies than we’ve made in some years.  Unfortunately, Malia came home from school sick on Tuesday, so she was not able to join us at my folks’ house. By that evening she was feeling much better though, so we were able to make her delicious raspberry pie at home. I love when food looks just as good as it tastes!

Thursday was Thanksgiving dinner, again at my parents’ house, and yesterday was the annual Thanksgiving gathering with Kevin’s family. That event was a bit smaller this year as one nephew’s wife was busy bringing a new baby into the world. How blessed we are to have such wonderful families! I never stop being grateful for my family and Kevin’s and in particular, I’m go glad for the positive relationships I have with all of them. I know many people who don’t get along with their siblings and it makes me so grateful that as adults, my siblings and I actually like each other, enjoy spending time together, and make that time a priority in our lives.

My little crew and I have spent the entire month putting leaves on a gratitude tree and I have really enjoyed taking the time to stop and think about just how many wonderful things for which I’m grateful. We used some gratitude question cards to help us think outside the box and as such, I found myself pondering things like what smell and what color I’m grateful for. I think my favorite thing about this year’s focus on gratitude is that Malia wants to keep things going. Due to crazy schedules, we had a few days when we didn’t choose a card and add leaves to our tree, and she wants to finish working through the cards.

As we move into the Christmas season, I hope that my family and I can continue to focus of things that we are thankful for, because we have been greatly blessed. We live an abundant life in so many ways. We are blessed with a multitude of tender mercies each and every day. Not the least of these is the wonderful gift our Savior has given us. He is not just the reason for the season, but the reason for everything. As December begins, hopefully I can help my family focus on the most important part of the holiday just as we were able to do for Thanksgiving.

Hip, Hip Hooray! It’s Annual Pie Day!

Today was the yearly Thanksgiving Eve pie making marathon. It was a notable occasion because for the first time ever, we had four generations of female family members in attendance. The only ones missing were my niece Sage and her two darling daughters. I’m so grateful that these traditions are becoming beloved for the younger generations. Family ties are priceless and I’m glad that I can actually say that my sisters are also my friends. I’m equally grateful that Malia counts her cousins among her best friends.

And it was also a productive night. Yum! Pie!

My personal contributions to the pie smorgasbord this year were a cranberry orange custard pie (one that I tried last year and really enjoyed) and a pecan cream pie. I can hardly wait to try it tomorrow!

When Did He Grow Up?

Today has been a big day for Daniel, and not just because it was pie day. 😉

(Nathan and I created some very serious pi. He made the lovely crust and I made the cranberry custard goodness that filled it.)

This afternoon Daniel became a legal driver. Yup, that’s the official temporary license. I’m not sure if he’s excited or not, but I’m excited (and a bit nervous). It will definitely make getting him to all his various activities easier though. He has become a typical teenager who is heavily involved in extra curricular and social activities and getting him everywhere he needs and wants to be has become wearying. So this will be a good thing. I just have to steel my nerves for the moment he walks out the door alone, with the keys in his hand.

This evening Daniel received an official invitation to his first ever school dance. The lovely girl who asked him has been in band and the various accompanying carpools for years. Like Daniel, she is a Whovian and she knows that he is a Trekkie as well. (Since the advent of the new iteration of Star Trek, being a Trekkie isn’t viewed as being anywhere near as geeky as it used to be. Either that, or being geeky has become more mainstream.) The tribble reference from Star Trek was a perfect fit for Daniel.

I try not to think about the fact that this kid of mine with graduate from high school in a year and a half…

Thanksgiving Traditions

Malia is in kindergarten which means that yesterday Malia had the tradition kindergarten Thanksgiving feast at school. She wore the traditional paper bag vest and ate the not so traditional offerings of her allergy friendly snack bin. All the a.m. and p.m. kindergarten students came in the morning. It was completely insane…and there were two classes missing because they are off-track. But she had a fabulous time.

Yesterday was also our traditional pie day and we made pie. So. Much. Pie. As always, it is an insane amount of pie. But we started early and finished fairly early so we took the kids out to eat on the way home. We opted for the not-so-traditional sushi and while the big folk ate that, Matthew joined in the fun and ate his tater tots with chopsticks. He’s such a good sport about packing his own food when we go out. I know it isn’t the way he’d like things to be, but he accepts it and is so great about it.

Today we ate the traditional turkey and got to partake of the pies of our labor. There was a delicious variety to choose from and as usual, I think we all ate too much pie.

Malia also got to wear a (nearly) traditional pilgrim cap thanks to my friend Tiff and Sabrina's decision that she was too old for such things.

One of my favorite things about the holidays are all the family traditions. I’m looking forward to all the traditions still to come in this holiday season.

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Happy (banana cream) pi day!!

A Couple of Cutie Pies

Today was pie day and by that I mean the annual baking of a million pies so we can all eat way more than we really should. In my family it is as big an event as the actual Thanksgiving dinner. It is a lot of work for the big folks, but for the kids it is just a chance to play with their cousins. It was warm enough that Malia and Kate spent a couple of hours in the sand box and on the swings. I don’t know about Kate, but that made Malia super duper happy. And then they got to make their very own tiny pies which they loved.

Malia fell asleep on the way home and was sooo tired that she didn’t wake up when we got home. I got her out of the car, carried her inside, handed her off to Kev and she snoozed through the whole thing. That is extremely unusual for her. Even when she was a baby I couldn’t get her out of the car without waking her up. She must have played really hard. :-)